Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill

Viscount Goschen Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 2nd June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Goschen (Con)]

My Lords, I too very much enjoyed the excellent maiden speech of my noble friend Lord Harper, who showed us a glint of steel, heavily disguised by wit and deftness of touch. I think we all look forward very much to hearing more from him, including on this Bill, when he can withdraw his sabre completely.

My overriding impression of this debate has been that there has been far more that unites us than divides us. In the full range of contributions from the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, to my noble friend Lord Lilley and all in between—if they will accept being the bookends of this excellent debate—there is a general acceptance that it really is the legitimate expectation of those we serve as parliamentarians that the Government must be able to defend and control our borders, described in the Explanatory Notes as “a vital strategic asset”, and indeed to remove those with no right to be here. It really is as simple as that.

Despite our island geography, we clearly do not have security at the border, and successive Governments have failed in this regard. We really should move on from ownership of historical policies and, to follow the noble Lord, Lord Bach, in his contribution to the previous debate on sentencing, take some of the heat and the blame game out of this. To move towards common approaches towards a complex problem is an admirable objective.

There really is a question of competence in government, and the public are tired of failure. People look to government, and indeed to Parliament, not for explanations about how difficult this is but for solutions. If the legal and regulatory framework, either domestically or internationally, is the obstacle, then, in partnership with our European partners and with other nations, we should seek to find proper, pragmatic, fair and humanitarian solutions that change the international regulatory regime. I listened with great interest to the previous speaker, the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald, who gave an excellent explanation of the imperative so to do in a pragmatic and fair way.

There is much that is admirable in this Bill. An awful lot of it feels very technical. Some of it feels just a little presentational, such as talk of commanders without too much to command, which has already been noted. It does not contain some of the ID card proposals that my noble friend Lord Swire, the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, and others talked about. Those would of course be much greater technical and policy moves than is contained in the Bill.

I suspect that much of our debates in Committee and thereafter on Report will be more about what is not in than what is in the Bill. I certainly welcome the pragmatic and sensible measures, many of which I was surprised are not already available to law enforcement authorities. However, I would like to ask the Minister what level of impact he believes the package of measures he is bringing forward in this Bill will have. There is a wealth of data on the situation; no doubt the Government have undertaken detailed analysis on the projected efficacy on the combination of these initiatives. What are the targets for improvements? What are the KPIs which the border security commander will be tasked with delivering? What does success look like?

In order to discuss the solution, one first has to understand the problem. People are travelling through numerous European safe countries before making the extremely hazardous trip across the channel to access the UK. Can the Minister respond in detail—if he does not have time this evening, perhaps he would be kind enough to write to me—on the factors in the intelligence the Government have which they believe drive people to risk their lives and those of their children and families to come to the UK rather than to stay in another safe country, namely France? This may be in terms of how they are treated when they arrive, the opportunity to remain in the UK, benefits when they settle here and any other factors that he considers relevant. We need to have a proper understanding of that in order to work out what the solution is.

The biggest issue is clearly the perverse incentive which rewards those who come here through illicit means. Until we can make a statement, backed up, supported by and compliant with international law, that if people come to the UK through illegal means, they will extremely prejudice their changes of staying in the country, we are not going to win and will undoubtedly fail.

Much has been made of the Australian example and the efficacy of its deterrent measures. I note a statement made by Rear Admiral Justin Jones, then commander of the Australian Maritime Border Command in a public video in 2022. He said, “Australia is resolute. Our border protection policies will not change. No one who attempts to travel illegally by boat will be allowed to settle here. No matter who you are or where you are from, our borders are closed to illegal migration. The only way to Australia is with a valid visa. You have zero change with illegal migration”. That is an interesting comparison, but the emphasis is on politicians in the United Kingdom and our European partner nations to look at the international regulatory settlement together to come up with a solution.